Corporations are failing to recognize adaptation in their climate change strategy

Robert Kropp in Social Funds: For institutional investors, the implications of climate change are considerable. According to a new report entitled Managin g the Unavoidable: investment implications of a changing climate, climate change is "likely to affect investors in sectors dependent on large fixed assets, such as tourism, water, property, construction, energy, and infrastructure, as well as other climate-sensitive sectors including health care, agriculture, forestry and insurance."

The report was produced by Henderson Global Investors and Insight Investment, both of which are UK-based fund managers with a long-term focus, as well as the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS), a pension fund, with input from Acclimatise, a risk management consulting firm. It finds that for all the risks associated with climate change, there are likely to be investment opportunities arising from adaptation as well.

The report reflects the long-term focus of its producers in finding that "the timeframe over which many significant impacts associated with a changing climate will occur is significantly longer than the timeframe used in most investment decisions being made now." It identifies several areas in which corporations are lagging in respect to climate change adaptation.

Studies have found that even if greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions were reduced to zero today, global temperatures would continue to rise for the next 30 years at least. Therefore, adaptation measures are as important a response to climate change as mitigation. However, according to the report, recognition of adaptation as a strategic issue is not nearly as clearly recognized by corporations as mitigation.

Furthermore, the report identifies weaknesses in corporate risk management processes, as well as a greater emphasis on risks than opportunities. In addition, inconsistent public policies often hamper the development by companies of long-term climate change strategies…..

A cash register built in 1904 in Ohio (USA) for a merchant in Nové Město nad Metují, shot by Kozuch, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License

Drought devastates Tanzania's Maasai communities

AllAfrica,com via Arusha Times (Tanzania): The drought spell that has hit most parts of Arusha and Manyara regions for about two consecutive years is tearing apart the Maasai social fabric and driving youths in large numbers to seek employment or beg for food in urban areas. Maasai youths from Simanjiro, Ngorongoro and Monduli Districts are flocking into town and the only job that they can sometimes find is guarding houses and business premises but often without any pay.

Some of the 'Morans' will work just for food and shelter. Cattle grazing, their main occupation back home, has suffered from the drought and as a result a major part of their livestock succumbed to the harsh desert-like conditions. This year's drought, according to observers, could be the worst in history.

…"We recently held a full council meeting of ward leaders and this subject though it wasn't in the agenda came up," stated Elias Wawa Lali the District Commissioner for Ngorongoro when asked about the dire conditions of district. He admitted that many parts of Ngorongoro suffered drought and indeed people are suffering. "And close to 20 percent of cattle have died some from drought and famine related predatory diseases," explained Mr Wawa Lali.

…The Monduli District Commissioner Mr Jowika Kasunga also admitted that drought had razed his district in the past several months, but he still had no data for animals that could have died and he was yet to be informed if there had been any departures of young men from the vicinity heading to Arusha town. However, It is now common to see Maasai women and children from drought stricken areas of the region go door to door begging for food or money….

A Maasai herdsman in Ngorongoro, Tanzania, shot by Nicor, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License

Sea level rise could cost port cities $28 trillion

Peter Wilkinson on CNN's website: A possible rise in sea levels by 0.5 meters by 2050 could put at risk more than $28 trillion worth of assets in the world's largest coastal cities, according to a report compiled for the insurance industry. The value of infrastructure exposed in so-called "port mega-cities," urban conurbations with more than 10 million people, is just $3 trillion at present.

The rise in potential losses would be a result of expected greater urbanization and increased exposure of this greater population to catastrophic surge events occurring once every 100 years caused by rising sea levels and higher temperatures.

The report, released on Monday by WWF and financial services Allianz, concludes that the world's diverse regions and ecosystems are close to temperature thresholds -- or "tipping points." Any one of these surge events could unleash devastating environmental, social and economic changes amid a higher urban population.

According to the report, carried out by the UK-based Tyndall Centre, the impacts of passing "Tipping Points" on the livelihoods of people and economic assets have been underestimated. Global temperatures have already risen by at least 0.7 degrees Celsius and the report says a further rise by 2-3 degrees in the second half of the century is likely unless deep cuts in emissions are put in place before 2015….

High tide in Venice's Piazza San Marco, shot by EVenise, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License

Colorado River drops to a record-low flow

Bob Berwyn in the Summit Daily News (Colorado): The latest predictions for a mid-winter dry spell may cause some headaches for Colorado water managers as they try to juggle supplies to maintain stream flows and fill reservoirs. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is forecasting that a strong El Niño may lead to dry conditions in the state's northern and central mountains at least until March, based on historic patterns associated with above-normal sea surface temperatures in the eastern Pacific.

Stream flows in Summit County are not too far off seasonal norms, but the Colorado River at Kremmling recently experienced an all-time record low flow for that date, according to local water commissioner Scott Hummer. The Colorado was only flowing at 280 cubic feet per second on Nov. 16, and flows farther downstream were also well below average, Hummer said. The previous minimum for the date was 330 cfs in 1978.

“I can't find a rhyme or reason as to why we're starting to see these low flows so early in the season,” Hummer said. Statewide, and in the Blue River Basin, the snowpack is at 79 percent of average. Only the Arkansas (at 99 percent) and the South Platte (100 percent) have an average snowpack for the date, he said.

Some of the higher elevation sites in the Blue River Basin have a decent snowpack, including Fremont Pass, where an automated Snotel site shows the snowpack at 121 percent of average. But lower elevation sites are dry, with Summit Ranch, north of Silverthorne, coming in at just 33 percent of normal. On the upside, reservoir storage around the state is near normal for this time of year….

Let's all thank Wolfgang Staudt for this breathtaking shot of the Colorado River winding through the Grand Canyon, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License.

Philippine agency launches disaster reduction, climate change adaptation projects

The News Today (Philippines): The National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID), is implementing the project for “Integrating Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) in Local Development Planning and Decision-making Processes” throughout the country.

Following the national launching in Metro Manila on October 22, with Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro, (the chair of the National Disaster and Coordinating Council), as keynote speaker, the DRR/CCA Project will be launched in Western Visayas at the Iloilo Grand Hotel in Iloilo City on November 24, 2009. Governor Salvacion Perez, the Chairperson of the Regional Development Council (RDC) and Chief Supt. Isagani Cuevas of the Regional Disaster Coordinating Council (RDCC), will deliver the messages. Director Ro-Ann Bacal of NEDA will welcome the participants coming from the local government units, regional line agencies, non-government organizations and the academe.

NEDA, as the lead implementing agency, is in charge of the overall management of the Project. As a multi-stakeholder project, NEDA will collaborate with partner agencies at the local level, particularly the DENR-EMB and HLURB. Its involvement in DRR/CCA efforts is in line with its land use and physical planning mandate as defined in Letter of Instruction 1350 which was recently amended by Executive Order (EO) 770. EO 770 directs NEDA to chair the National and Regional Land Use Committees (RLUCs) which are tasked to, among others, promote the integration of land use and physical planning policies, plans and programs, including disaster risk management (DRM) into national and regional socioeconomic plans and programs.

The DRR/CCA Project aims to enhance awareness and understanding of climate change and its aggravating effect on existing natural hazards and develop tools for the formulation of physical framework/land use and development plans. Furthermore, it intends to demonstrate practical integrated DRR/CCA approaches at the community level as well as provide an enabling environment and policy directions for reducing risk….

Satellite image of the Philippines, NASA

Permafrost thaw threatens Russia oil and gas complex

Energy Daily via Agence France-Presse: Thawing permafrost caused by global warming is costing Russian energy firms billions of dollars annually in damage control and shrinking Russia's territory, Greenpeace warned in a new study Friday. According to the report by the environmental watchdog, up to 55 billion roubles (1.9 billion dollars) a year is spent on repairs to infrastructure and pipelines damaged by changes in the permafrost in western Siberia.

"For Russia, the biggest threat of the permafrost melt is to oil and gas company infrastructure," said Vladimir Chuprov, who heads Greenpeace's energy programme in Russia. He said that the group had consulted with experts at gas giant Gazprom in writing its report, which detailed the destruction to infrastructure such as pipelines caused by rising temperatures and resulting melt water.

"These are people who see what is happening and are already feeling the economic consequences of it," he told reporters in Moscow…. The permafrost thaw has accelerated in recent years and Russia is now shrinking by 30 square kilometres (12 square miles) per year as icey territory disappears from the coastline, one of the authors of the report, Oleg Anisimov, warned….

Zapadno-Kluchevskoe oil in the Tomsk region of Siberia, shot by Ivan Petrov / Иван Петров, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License

Antarctic ice loss vaster, faster than thought: study

Agence France-Presse: The East Antarctic icesheet, once seen as largely unaffected by global warming, has lost billions of tonnes of ice since 2006 and could boost sea levels in the future, according to a new study. Published Sunday in Nature Geoscience, the same study shows that the smaller but less stable West Antarctic icesheet is also shedding significant mass.

Scientists worry that rising global temperatures could trigger a rapid disintegration of West Antarctica, which holds enough frozen water to push up the global ocean watermark by about five metres (16 feet).

In 2007 the UN Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) predicted sea levels would rise 18 to 59 centimetres (7.2 to 23.2 inches) by 2100, but this estimate did not factor in the potential impact of crumbling icesheets in Greenland and Antarctica. Today many of the same scientist say that even if heat-trapping CO2 emissions are curtailed, the ocean watermark is more likely to go up by nearly a metre, enough to render several small island nations unlivable and damage fertile deltas home to hundreds of millions.

…Covering the period up January 2009, the data was collected by the twin GRACE satellites, which detect mass flows in the ocean and polar regions by measuring changes in Earth's gravity field. Consistent with earlier findings based on different methods, they found that West Antarctica dumped, on average, about 132 billion tonnes of ice into the sea each year, give or take 26 billion tonnes….

Antarctic mountains and drifting ice.jpgLuigi peak on Wiencke Island, shot by Georges Nijs, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License.

Australian authorities veto a subdivision due to rising sea risk

ABC News (Australia): The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT ) has refused a subdivision at Waratah Bay in Gippsland because of the risk of sea-level rise. The South Gippsland Shire's Andrew McEwan says the decision is a landmark one for the region's planners, and will have many consequences. The Shire had recommended VCAT approve the Brown Street planning application.

Mr McEwan says the Shire will need significant assistance from the State and Federal governments to be able to address compensation in future cases. "We're certainly concerned, and we're engaged in conversations with the Government in terms of climate change and sealevel rise and its impact, but very clearly the studies need to be done on a comprehensive basis, across the whole Victorian coastline," he said. "And rural councils themselves, which are limited in resources, are not in a position to be able to finance these."….

The Gippsland Lakes in Victoria, Australia. Lakes Entrance is visible at the top right. Longford is just out of picture to the west. Shot from NASA

Acid oceans leave fish at more risk from predators

BBC: Ocean acidification could cause fish to become "fatally attracted" to their predators, according to scientists. A team studying the effects of acidification - caused by dissolved CO2 - on ocean reefs found that it leaves fish unable to "smell danger".

The findings were published in the journal Ecology Letters. Danielle Dixson from James Cook University in Queensland, Australia, led the study. She and her colleagues tested orange clown fish larvae that were raised in water with the same slightly alkaline pH as their ocean reef habitat, and those raised in more acidic water. The team released the fish into a "flow chamber" with two water sources flowing in parallel.

One source was taken from tanks containing the clown fishes' natural predators and one was drawn from tanks in which non-predatory fish were swimming. "The flow rates are identical, so the water won't mix," Ms Dixson explained. "This allows the fish in the chamber to choose which water cue they prefer or dislike."

In the test, the fish reared in normal water avoided the stream of water that their predators had been swimming in. They detected the odour of a predator and swam away from it. But, Ms Dixson said, fish raised in the more acidic water were strongly attracted to both the predatory and the non-predatory flumes.

… Ms Dixson told BBC News: "Ocean acidification has the potential to become a widespread problem and it's unknown how many organisms and ecosystems will cope with the decrease [in] pH. "This study shows that ocean acidification could lead to an increase in the mortality of larvae."…

A clown fish, shot by Fir0002, Wikimedia Commons, under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2

Wildfires spreading as temperatures rise

Janet Larsen of the Earth Policy Institute in IPS: Future firefighters have their work cut out for them. Perhaps nowhere does this hit home harder than in Australia, where in early 2009 a persistent drought, high winds, and record high temperatures set the stage for the worst wildfire in the country's history.

On Feb. 9, now known as "Black Saturday", the mercury in Melbourne topped 115 degrees Fahrenheit (46.4 degrees Celsius) as fires burned over one million acres in the state of Victoria - destroying more than 2,000 homes and killing more than 170 people, tens of thousands of cattle and sheep, and one million native animals.

Even as more people move into fire-prone wildlands around the world, the intense droughts and higher temperatures that come with global warming are likely to make fires more frequent and severe in many areas. For southeastern Australia, home to much of the country's population, climate change could triple the number of extreme fire risk days by 2050.

…Fire patterns have changed over time as human populations have grown and altered landscapes by clearing forests, allowing pasture animals to overgraze grasslands, and importing new plant species. Across parts of the western United States, for example, cheatgrass, an invasive annual adapted to frequent burns, has supplanted native brush, desert shrub, and perennial grasses that typically experience longer intervals between fires.

...Just as a weakened immune system leaves a person vulnerable to otherwise innocuous germs, the combination of logging, road construction, and intentional burning to clear forests for cattle ranches, farms, and plantations has fragmented the world's tropical forests, increasing their vulnerability to fire.

Piling higher temperatures on top of such stresses could completely undermine forests' resilience. For the massive Amazon rainforest, we risk reaching a tipping point where recurrent droughts dry out the landscape enough so that small fires can turn into devastating conflagrations….

Canberra bushfires in 2003, shot by Saperaud

Model predicts future deforestation

Anjali Nayar in Nature News: A computer model that predicts future changes in the world's forests could strengthen the case of Central African nations that are calling for compensation in exchange for protecting their natural resources. Forest management is expected to be a key point of discussion at the United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen in December. Countries will negotiate on how to reward rainforest nations for protecting their forests, a mechanism dubbed REDD for 'reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation'.

Deforestation rates in the Congo Basin rainforest — the second-largest rainforest on Earth — have hovered at around 0.15% per year for the past 15 years. But preliminary results from the model, unveiled this week, predict that forest cutting in the region will increase to 0.3–0.5% per year by 2020–30. Major rainforest countries that have historically had high deforestation rates — such as Indonesia (2.0%) and Brazil (0.6%) — are pushing for compensation that is based on historical trends. With a relatively high business-as-usual scenario, they are expected to reap above-average rewards for any decreases in deforestation.

But using historical trends will short-change the countries of the Congo Basin, some argue. Although in the past this region has had low deforestation rates, recent improvements in the road network as well as planned mining and timber projects are likely to increase deforestation rates considerably in coming years. "There are strong indications that Central African forests are at a critical turning point for the future," says Carlos de Wasseige, the coordinator of an EU-funded project called Forests of Central Africa, whuch hopes to set up a regional forest monitoring centre.

"Most proposals for [REDD] suggest that history is the best predictor of tomorrow," says Michael Obersteiner, who is leading the development of the forestry model at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, based in Laxenburg, Austria. "But for [Central African] countries, the forward-looking projections will be more reliable."…

Nyungwe Forest in Rwanda, photo by USAID

Middle East coastline faces devastation if climate warms by a single degree

Patrick Galey in the Daily Star (Lebanon): Lebanon may see parts of its coastline vanish if climate change continues unabated, according to a landmark report on the evolving environment of the Arab world. The Impact of Climate Change on Arab Countries – a document assembled by the Arab Forum for Environment and Development – warns that an increase in global temperature of just a single degree “would directly impact 41,500 square-kilometers of the Arab coastal lands.”

Sea level rise is a big risk, according to the report, “since the bulk of the Arab region’s economic activity, agriculture and population centers are in the coastal zone.” Beirut, as one of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region’s coastal economic hubs, would suffer financially as infrastructure struggled to cope with rising tides and an increase of severe weather conditions, such as storms and flooding.

The report, unveiled in Beirut on Thursday, compiled data from scientific institutions across the world and concluded that a 1 meter rise in global sea levels would impact on 3.2 percent of the Arab population, compared to 1.3 percent worldwide.

Such extreme meteorological events would cost the MENA region additional losses of $12.7 billion, according to the report. It added that not enough was being done by regional governments to tackle the threats posed by sea level rise and pollution….

Sunset near Beirut, shot by Bertilvidet, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License

Don't ignore agriculture in climate talks, experts warn

Naomi Antony in SciDev.net: Leading agriculturalists have warned that failure to include agriculture in next month's climate change summit in Copenhagen will have disastrous consequences on food security. More than 60 leading agricultural scientists from around the world signed a statement this week (18 November) in response to the almost total absence of agriculture from preliminary discussions leading up to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) summit in Copenhagen in December.

Climate change will create unprecedented conditions for farmers, who will have to cope with weather variability, temperature changes, shorter growing seasons, salt stress and new combinations of pests and diseases, said the statement. Without adaptation, yields will drop, creating food insecurity for billions, say researchers (see Billions face food shortages this century, warns study).

"No credible or effective agreement to address the challenges of climate change can ignore agriculture and the need for crop adaptation to ensure the world's future food supplies," said the statement. "We urge countries at the Copenhagen conference to give due attention to crop diversity conservation and use it as an essential element of the commitments they will make for climate change adaptation."

…"Just because [agriculture] has to adapt, does not mean it will," said signatory Gebisa Ejeta, the Ethiopian sorghum scientist who won this year's World Food Prize….

Some sorghum, shot by Daniel Georg Döhne, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License

Experts examine possible links between climate change and infectious disease transmission

PR Newswire: An emerging body of evidence suggests that the changing global climate is already affecting infectious disease transmission patterns. As noted today in a symposium at the 58th annual meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH), such changes are expected to have a profound impact on global public health.

"There is concrete evidence that the global climate is changing, and these changes are expected to greatly impact human health as surface temperatures rise, agricultural belts shift, and extreme weather events become more commonplace," observed Mary H. Hayden, Ph.D. of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, CO. "Although most scientists agree that climate change is underway, the role it plays in infectious disease transmission is still in contention. The evidence presented today suggests that climate change will exacerbate the challenges of controlling infectious diseases in the developing world."

The aim of the symposium, "Changing the Climate: A Data-Driven Discussion About Climate," was to address the use, utility, and limitations of weather and climate models toward a goal of providing data-driven evidence of the links between weather, climate, specific pathogens and ultimately, human health. The symposium included several evidence-based presentations by speakers from the US Centers Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Columbia University's International Research Institute on the established effects of climate variability/change on specific climate-sensitive diseases such as meningitis, malaria, plague and other vector-borne bacterial pathogens.

"Climate change is expected to impact global health through a variety of factors including greater heat stress, air pollution, respiratory disease exacerbation, and changes in the geographic distribution of vector-, food- and water-borne disease," commented Dr. Hayden, who is one of the three (Dr. Emily Zielinski-Gutierrez (CDC) and Dr. George Luber (CDC)) program coordinators of a joint NCAR/US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention postdoctoral fellowship combining public health applications and climate science. "The complexity of such influences requires that the next generation of climate and health scientists undergo training to ensure that they can address climate-related public health challenges. Such preparation will be critical as the population of at-risk individuals continues to grow."…

Physician attire for protection from the Bubonic plague or Black death Credit(s): Paul Fürst (after J Columbina)

Insurers calculate the rising risks of climate change

Ingi Salgado in Business Report (South Africa) writes a long, fact-filled report about a country that has a history of innovative insurance practices: The risk of rising claims from severe weather events has prompted global insurers to warn that the continued availability of widespread insurance depends on taking immediate action to mitigate climate change and adapt to its effects.

The Association of British Insurers earlier this month said a 2176C [sic] rise in average global temperatures - described as "inevitable" - would raise the UK's average annual insured losses from inland flooding by 8 percent, or £47 million (R588m). Additional insurance capital of £1.65 billion would be required, potentially leading to a drop in the availability of cover and making insurance more expensive and harder to get.

Comparative figures for South Africa are not available. The local insurance industry is only starting to get to grips with the risks and opportunities linked to climate change. "It's still very early days," says Auto & General chief executive Leon Vermaak. "I don't believe there's a concerted effort from the insurance industry. We're aware of the issue but not quite sure what to do."

South Africa's largest short-term insurer, Santam, seems to be leading the pack, having joined ClimateWise, a global initiative to collaborate on climate change that counts the world's top insurers as members. Santam is in the process of gathering data to better understand the impact of climate change on clients and to propose solutions to mitigate these risks, says Hendri Nigrini, the executive head of risk services.

...David Bresch, the head of sustainability and emerging risk management at Swiss Re, says South Africa needs to undertake its own study to identify where the greatest climate risks are located and how big the losses might be. "It will then be in a position to prioritise investment to reduce exposure to climate change and support local economic development," he says, adding that it's better for governments to make early investments in climate adaptation, including insurance, rather than face major budget deficits in managing disaster relief after a severe weather event….

Composite satellite image of South Africa in November 2002. NASA

Dutch build more dunes against rising seas

Agence France-Presse: On the beach at Monster, bulldozers painstakingly turn sand dredged from the bottom of the North Sea bed into dunes in an ambitious effort to safeguard the Netherlands from flooding. Stretching more than 20 kilometres (15 miles) southwards from The Hague, the project is one of many in a never-ending battle against rising sea levels attributed to global warming.

"Because it is a low-lying delta, the Netherlands is very sensitive to climate change," Water Management Deputy Minister Tineke Huizinga told AFP on a recent visit to the bustling work site. "If sea and river levels rise, the Netherlands will be under threat," Huizinga said, walking in yellow boots along a pipeline of several hundred metres (yards) spewing out dredged sand.

"Fortunately, the coast is safe today, but we are investing in the security of people who will live here in 50 years." More than 18 million cubic metres of sand -- enough to fill 7,200 Olympic-sized swimming pools -- are set to be poured onto the new coastal band of dunes until 2011.

The project got underway last year at a total cost of 130 million euros (about 200 million dollars) to the Dutch state. Sand is dredged from the bottom of the North Sea, about 15 kilometres from shore, by two specialised vessels that work in turns, day and night, before being relayed to the beach via the pipeline. Bulldozers then amass the sand to create the dunes, broaden the beach and gain territory from the sea, metre by metre…..

A dune in Schoorl an Zee, Netherlands, shot by S.Möller

Torrential rains and flooding rivers turn British town into an island

Martin Wainwright in the Guardian (UK): The twin rivers that bring thousands of tourists to Cockermouth turned on the town after the heaviest rainfall ever recorded in Britain, driving 250 people out of their homes. Torrents flung cars across the picturesque centre, sweeping through Wordsworth's birthplace and ransacking one of the largest concentrations of small, independent shops in the north.

"See that oven," said Keith Fair, who opened an upmarket kitchen shop in Market Square two years ago. "That was in the window last night. Now it's on its side, halfway out of the back door."

"We were lucky – sort of," says his fitter Jim Woodford, a burly six-footer who had to cling to railings before flinging himself on the rescue boat. He points at the broken roof of a four-storey Georgian building. "The RAF's Sea King was up there this morning, winching out a group of people in their 70s and 80s."

Like many in Cockermouth, the pensioners had refused to believe that their cosy homes, painted in seaside pastel and newly strung with Christmas lights, might be death traps if water inundated the ground floors. The town has had three floods in the last 10 years and hosted an Environment Agency forum on six defence options only last month.

"But there's been nothing remotely like this," said Jeremy Petman, head brewer at Jennings, whose riverside malt store was awash with two waterlogged skips of spent hops. "This was a different scale. There'll be no brewing now for a long time."…

The church in Cockermouth in dryer times, shot by im Herrick, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License

New 'Code Red' warning debuts in Australia

News24: Australian officials issued their first ever "catastrophic" wildfire evacuation warning on Tuesday, as a parching heatwave intensified over the country's south. Created in the wake of February's devastating Black Saturday firestorm, which killed 173 people, the new warning urges residents to flee due to conditions being at their most extreme.

It replaced a "stay or go" policy allowing homeowners to remain and fight extremely risky blazes, which came under heavy criticism after the February disaster. Catastrophic or Code Red conditions were declared for the first time in South Australia state on Tuesday, where the temperature was forecast to top 40 degrees Celsius following an earlier record-breaking heatwave.

"In the next couple of days we are going to see high temperatures, very low humidity and very strong winds," said fire service chief Euan Ferguson. "This is the first real test for the summer."

Code Red conditions are considered on a par with those experienced ahead of the Black Saturday fires, which in Victoria state razed entire towns and more than 2 000 homes, Australia's worst natural disaster of modern times. Residents cannot be forcibly evacuated but are strongly advised to leave their property on a Code Red day, which signifies a high risk of death or injury and destruction….

Smoke over Melbourne from bushfires in February 2009, shot by Nick carson , Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License

Katrina damage due to 'monumental' neglect

Who needs climate change when you have a thick layer of US government fecklessness, stupidity, and arrogance? Cain Burdeau in National Geographic via AP: A federal judge ruled Wednesday that the Army Corps of Engineers' failure to properly maintain a navigation channel led to massive flooding in Hurricane Katrina, a decision that could make the federal government vulnerable to billions of dollars in claims.

U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval sided with six residents and one business who argued the Army Corps' shoddy oversight of the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet led to the flooding of New Orleans' Lower 9th Ward and neighboring St. Bernard Parish. He said, however, the corps couldn't be held liable for the flooding of eastern New Orleans, where two of the plaintiffs lived.

Duval awarded the plaintiffs U.S. $720,000, but the government could eventually be forced to pay much more in damages. The ruling should give more than 100,000 other individuals, businesses, and government entities a better shot at claiming billions of dollars in damages. Speaking in May, months before the ruling, Bob Bea, a civil engineer and levee expert at the University of California, Berkeley, told National Geographic News that the federal government could be on the hook as much as two trillion dollars.

The ruling is also emotionally resonant for southern Louisiana. Many in New Orleans have argued that the flooding in the aftermath of the hurricane, which struck the region on August 29, 2005, was a human-made disaster caused by the Army Corps' failure to maintain the levee system protecting the city. "Total devastation could possibly have been avoided if something had been done," said Tanya Smith, one of the plaintiffs. "A lot of this stuff was preventable and they turned a deaf ear to it."

…Duval referred to the corps' approach to maintaining the channel as "monumental negligence." Joe Bruno, one of the lead lawyers for the plaintiffs, said the ruling underscored the Army Corps' long history of not properly protecting the New Orleans region. "It's high time we look at the way these guys do business and do a full re-evaluation of the way it does business," Bruno said….

New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, 2005, shot by NOAA

Ocean uptake of man-made carbon may be slowing

Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory: The oceans play a key role in regulating climate, absorbing more than a quarter of the carbon dioxide that humans put into the air. Now, the first year-by-year accounting of this mechanism during the industrial era suggests the oceans are struggling to keep up with rising emissions—a finding with potentially wide implications for future climate. The study appears in this week’s issue of the journal Nature, and is expanded upon in a separate website.

The researchers estimate that the oceans last year took up a record 2.3 billion tons of CO2 produced from burning of fossil fuels. But with overall emissions growing rapidly, the proportion of fossil-fuel emissions absorbed by the oceans since 2000 may have declined by as much as 10%.

Some climate models have already predicted such a slowdown in the oceans’ ability to soak up excess carbon from the atmosphere, but this is the first time scientists have actually measured it. Models attribute the change to depletion of ozone in the stratosphere and global warming-induced shifts in winds and ocean circulation. But the new study suggests the slowdown is due to natural chemical and physical limits on the oceans’ ability to absorb carbon—an idea that is now the subject of widespread research by other scientists.

“The more carbon dioxide you put in, the more acidic the ocean becomes, reducing its ability to hold CO2” said the study’s lead author, Samar Khatiwala, an oceanographer at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. “Because of this chemical effect, over time, the ocean is expected to become a less efficient sink of manmade carbon. The surprise is that we may already be seeing evidence for this, perhaps compounded by the ocean’s slow circulation in the face of accelerating emissions.”…

Carbon released by fossil fuel burning (black) continues to accumulate in the air (red), oceans (blue), and land (green). The oceans take up roughly a quarter of manmade CO2, but evidence suggests they are now taking up a smaller proportion. Credit: Samar Khatiwala, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory

Moving water around in soggy Vietnam

Helen Clark in IPS highlights a persistent challenge for Hanoi and other cities: As Vietnam’s big cities are increasingly deluged by floods, the infrastructure cannot keep up. At the end of October last year Hanoi suffered the worst floods in over 50 years. Some streets were under more than two metres of water, resulting in a death toll of 20, many as a result of electrocution from makeshift wiring; others from drowning. Photos of people fishing in the streets made headlines, but after the waters receded, people began to question their city’s underperforming infrastructure.

Last year’s floods were blamed on the heaviest rains in 24 years. However, Hanoi’s sub-tropical climate means that every year monsoonal rains hit the 1,000-year-old city. They flood main streets and labyrinthine back alleys, often to knee or waist depth. Sewerage can become a problem as garbage flows through the streets.

The rainy season is over in the north of Vietnam, but increased urbanisation and inclement weather mean the situation could worsen across the whole country. Based on a study by the International Centre for Environmental Management, an independent group that promotes ecologically sustainable development, two-thirds of southern Ho Chi Minh could be under water during storms by 2050.

…"The infrastructure of the drainage system is not following the development of the city," Truong Thu Hien, sub-head of the planning department of the Hanoi Sewerage and Drainage Company (HSDC), told IPS via email. Hanoi is located in a basin between the Red and Nhue Rivers and is naturally prone to flooding. Pipes are only able to carry some of the water from heavy rains, and the city lacks the resources for the needed improvements.

"Capital is the biggest challenge for Hanoi as far as improvement of the drainage system is concerned," continued Hien. The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has been funding a two-stage project to improve pumping stations and drainage, and cover many open air canals. New urban projects in the city’s west are especially prone to flooding….

This great shot of flooding in Hanoi on October 31, 2008, is by haithanh, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License.

Climate change will exacerbate gaps between rich and poor: UNFPA state of world population 2009

Kalinga Times: Family planning, reproductive health care and gender relations could influence the future course of climate change and affect how humanity adapts to rising seas, worsening storms and severe droughts, according to The State of World Population 2009 , published today by UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund.

International climate-change agreements and national policies are more likely to succeed in the long run if they take into account population dynamics, the relations between the sexes, and women's well-being and access to services and opportunities, the report concludes. Slower population growth, for example, would help build social resilience to climate change's impacts and would contribute to a reduction of greenhouse-gas emissions in the future, The State of World Population 2009 found.

According to a summary of the report released by UNFPA in the city on Thursday, most of the debate about climate change today has revolved around countries' relative responsibilities for limiting the growth of greenhousegas emissions and for funding efforts to shift to low-carbon energy and other technologies. What's the best approach for reducing carbon emissions? Who should shoulder the financial responsibility for addressing current and future climate change? “These questions are critically important,” UNFPA Executive Director Thoraya Ahmed Obaid writes in the foreword to the report. “But also important are fundamental questions about how climate change will affect women, men, boys and girls differently around the world, and indeed within nations, and how individual behaviour can undermine or contribute to the global effort to cool our warming world.”

The climate debate of the future must take into account the human and gender dimensions of every aspect of the problem. Any treaty emerging out of the December 2009 Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change “that helps people adapt to climate change and that harnesses women's and men's power to reverse the warming of the earth's atmosphere would launch a genuinely effective long-term global strategy to deal with climate change,” Ms. Obaid adds….

World's fastest computer is working on climate change

Bridgette Meinhold in Inhabitat: This past Monday, the insanely powerful Jaguar XT5 supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee was named the fastest supercomputer in the world. With a speed of 1.759 petaflops (quadrillions of calculations per second), this incredibly swift machine is currently being used by the forces of good to solve the world’s problems – including one that is very near and dear to our hearts, climate change.

Over a billion hours of processing time on the computer have already been booked for 2010 by research institutes like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Argonne National Laboratory. NOAA for instance will be using its supercomputing time to develop high-resolution models to predict climate change on a regional scale. University of Tennessee and ORNL will be studying enzymes in plant cell walls to develop a better ethanol. And Argonne will be developing new algorithms for fast reactors that would produce smaller amounts of nuclear waste.

A $19.9 million upgrade funded with federal economic stimulus money was what allowed the new supercomputer to beat out the almost as fast IBM Roadrunner. Unlike the Roadrunner, which is used solely for studies related to nuclear weapons, Jaguar is an open tool meant to be used by various research institutes to study and solve more global issues – namely energy, climate change, enzyme studies for better fuels, medicine, nuclear security, and even exploring the origins of the universe. Maybe it’ll even be able to locate the Higgs boson!

Thomas Zacharia, the Oak Ridge Lab’s deputy director for science and technology, says about the computer, “When you make these big trillion-dollar bets on energy, it needs to be informed by the best climate science. This machine is at the intersection of better climate change science and energy technology policy….”

Photo of the Jaguar supercomputer courtesy of Oak Ridge National Laborator

A shrinking major lake in China is a victim of drought

China Daily: Dongting Lake, the nation's second largest freshwater lake, has decreased by more than 90 percent compared with its average capacity during the flood season, a local official said. Presently the lake's total volume is about 770 million cu m, less than 10 percent of the average volume during the flood season, said Jiang Yimin, director of Hunan provincial environmental protection bureau, to the Economic Information Daily Monday.

The lake is located in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River. Successive years of drought in the upstream areas have led to the lake's low volume, it reported. Water levels at the Songzi, Hudu and Ouchi rivers, three tributaries of the Yangtze River, have dropped since 1974.

The lake's water area, which spans Central China's Hubei and Hunan provinces, measured about 538 sq km in mid-October, only 40 percent of its capacity in September, Xinhua reported. The operation of the Three Gorges reservoir has exacerbated the drought, leading to a decrease in water flow into the lake, the newspaper quoted anonymous experts as saying….

Sunset on Dongting Lake, shot by Stephen Webel of Webel.photography, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License

Stormy weather brings severe flood warning in northwest England

Haroon Siddique in the Guardian (UK): The Environment Agency issued a severe flood warning in the north-west this morning as heavy rain and winds hit parts of the UK. More than 115 flood warnings and flood watches were in place, with Anglia and the Thames region the only areas free of alerts.

The severe flood warning, which is expected to remain in place for a couple of days, applies to the river Irwell at Strongstry and Chatterton, near Bolton. "It's quite possible there could be flooding from the river, there is already surface water flooding," an Environment Agency spokesman said. Agency workers were at the scene trying to clear the area.

Lancashire is the main concern for the agency today, with Cumbria at highest risk tomorrow and Friday. "The ground's very wet, the rivers are rising and with heavy rain that we're expecting, in particular for Cumbria, that's where we'll be focusing our attention," the spokesman said. He advised people to keep abreast of developments by visiting the Environment Agency's website.

A number of severe weather warnings are in place. Helen Chivers, from the Met Office, said the heaviest rain was expected in northern and north-western parts of the UK. Cumbria, north Wales and south-west Scotland could see 200mm of rain on high ground over the next few days and winds of 70-75mph….

The River Irwell at Salford in January 2008, looking towards Manchester City Centre, North West England, shot by Ian Roberts, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.0 License

Himalayan people feel heat of climate change

Times of India: Munni Rawat, a 50-year-old homemaker in Uttarakhand state in the Himalayas, does not know about the climate summit in Copenhagen next month. But she does know that climate change has dried up the stream in her hillside village in northern India.

"There has hardly been any rain or snow in winter since 2006, and there was very little rain this year even during monsoon. Besides, almost all the rainfall this monsoon took place over two weeks instead of four months, so all the water flowed down the hill instead of going underground. How do you expect the stream to run?" Rawat asked. The woman, who is a small farmer from Pratap Nagar in Tehri district, was here to take part in a seminar Tuesday on the effects of climate change in the Himalayas.

Dehradun-based NGO Navdanya, which organised the seminar, has just finished a survey of these effects in 165 villages spread across Uttarakhand as well as Ladakh in Jammu and Kashmir. The survey found that in the last few years rainfall has not only been scanty but also erratic.

"As a result, we found that during the past one decade, 34.6 percent perennial springs (280 springs out of 809) have been converted either into seasonal springs or dried up completely," said Vinod Kumar Bhatt, one of the scientists who carried out the survey.

…These effects are now all too obvious on the ground, said Bhatt, who described 2009 as "the year of forest fires in Garhwal...Prolonged drought has meant rapid drying of moisture in the oak and other broad-leaved forests (in the Himalayas) and has paved the way for fires."

…"I have no doubt that the climate is changing," said Rawat. "It's becoming impossible to live in our villages any more. If this goes on, we'll all have to shift to Delhi."

Bangali, a village in Uttaranchal near Nandprayag. Shot by Michael Scalet, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License

Dozen lesser-known chemicals have strong impact on climate change

Science Daily: A new study indicates that major chemicals most often cited as leading causes of climate change, such as carbon dioxide and methane, are outclassed in their warming potential by compounds receiving less attention.

Purdue University and NASA examined more than a dozen chemicals, most of which are generated by humans, and have developed a blueprint for the underlying molecular machinery of global warming. The results appear in a special edition of the American Chemical Society's Journal of Physical Chemistry A, released Nov. 12.

The compounds, which contain fluorine atoms, are far more efficient at blocking radiation in the "atmospheric window," said Purdue Professor Joseph Francisco, who helped author the study. The atmospheric window is the frequency in the infrared region through which radiation from Earth is released into space, helping to cool the planet. When that radiation is trapped instead of being released, a "greenhouse effect" results, warming the globe. Most of the chemicals in question are used industrially, he said.
NASA scientist Timothy Lee, lead author of the study with Francisco and NASA postdoctoral fellow Partha Bera, characterized the fluorinated compounds as having the potential to quickly slam the atmospheric window shut, as opposed to gradually easing it shut like carbon dioxide.

In the results, chemicals such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur and nitrogen fluorides stood out in their warming potential because of their efficiency to trap radiation in the atmospheric window. "It's actually rather stark," said Francisco, a Purdue chemistry and earth and atmospheric sciences professor, whose research focuses on the chemistry of molecules in the atmosphere.

An understanding of how the chemicals contribute to climate change on a molecular scale affords the opportunity to create benign alternatives and to test new chemicals for their global warming capability before they go to market, Francisco said….

Echocardiograph showing dilatation of the left ventricle in the acute phase. (B) Resolution of left ventricular function on repeat echocardiograph 6 days later. Perfluorocarbons are used in contrast-enhanced ultrasound to improve signal backscatter, just to show you a use that you hadn't thought of yet. Image by Tara C Gangadhar, Elisabeth Von der Lohe, Stephen G Sawada and Paul R Helft, Wikmedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License

Monsoon model indicates potential for abrupt transitions

Science Daily: A self-amplifying effect presently sustains monsoon winds, but it could also disrupt the circulation over land and sea. The periodical rainfall could stop from one season to another or for months within seasons. High air pollution could lead to the disruption, researchers of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Online Early Edition. Global warming increases the risk of abrupt monsoon transitions from high-precipitation to dry periods.

"The agricultural food supply for around two billion people in Asia and Africa depends on the eponymous regularity of monsoon rainfall," says the lead author Anders Levermann. The name "monsoon" stems from the Arabic word "mausim" for "season." However, months with extremely scarce precipitation have been observed within monsoon seasons, as in India in 2002, causing economic and humanitarian problems in the affected regions. During the past 11,000 years rainfall in monsoon regions has undergone strong and abrupt changes repeatedly.

The researchers investigated how such irregularities or disruptions of monsoon circulations can come about. "Our analysis shows on the basis of observations that there could be two stable states for monsoon systems and the possibility of abrupt transitions from one to the other," says Levermann.

The driving force of monsoon systems depends on different air temperatures. In spring, the air over land is warmed up more rapidly than the air over the sea. The warmer air rises and moist and cooler air from the ocean flows landwards and yields precipitation, which has two effects: the rainfall cools the land surface, but also releases latent heat, when water vapour condenses to raindrops. The more moist air is transported landwards, the more latent heat is released through rainfall and the more moist air is drawn towards land. This self amplification, named moisture-advection feedback, sustains the temperature difference and the entire circulation. However, the self-amplification is vulnerable and may lead to abrupt changes in response to relatively weak external perturbations, the authors state….

A sunset view on monsoon clouds over the Bay of Bengal, from a beach in Tamil Nadu, India. Shot by mmj171188, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.0 License.

New water management tool may help ease effects of drought

North Carolina State University News: Continued improvement of climate forecasts is resulting in better information about what rainfall and streamflow may look like months in advance. A researcher from North Carolina State University has developed an innovative water management framework that would take advantage of these forecasts to plan for droughts or excess rain in order to make the most efficient use of an area’s water resources.

By using climate forecasts for short-term planning, water managers can better plan for potential shortages due to drought, says Dr. Sankar Arumugam, an assistant professor of civil, construction and environmental engineering at NC State and lead author of the paper. For example, managers could encourage stakeholders to put water-use restrictions in place and launch a water conservation campaign before the drought even arrives. Managers could also use this approach to determine how best to take advantage of surplus water supplies. …[H]ydropower facilities could generate additional power instead of spilling the excess water. Arumugam notes that the use of forecasts for planning would also make water managers better able to account for increased water demands due to population growth.

“Our paper proposes a framework that would use forecast data to improve water management, allowing water managers to be proactive with their planning rather than reacting to events after the fact,” Arumugam says. Water managers at the federal, state and local level determine how much water can be allotted to various uses, such as hydropower, agriculture, municipal use, recreation and the protection of aquatic species.

Arumugam says advances in the understanding of how changes in ocean temperature affect the atmosphere and, ultimately, precipitation and temperature, make seasonal or longer-term climate forecasts increasingly reliable. At the same time, Arumugam says, water management is becoming more important due to increasing global population – which means greater water demand – and global climate change, which could stress both humid and arid regions with the former getting wetter and the latter becoming drier….

A dry riverbed in California, shot by NOAA

Bangladesh to dredge rivers as climate change causes salinity intrusion

People’s Daily Online via Xinhua: The Bangladeshi government, as part of its all-out efforts to check climate change-induced salinity intrusion, will go for capital dredging in the country's major rivers shortly, a minister said Tuesday.

Speaking at a seminar here on Tuesday, Bangladeshi Water Resources Minister Ramesh Chandra Sen said, "The government will go for capital dredging soon to ensure more navigability of the major rivers to check salinity intrusion."

The minister's remark came after experts in the seminar, organized by the Institute of Water Modelling (IWM), a trust established by the Bangladeshi government, said that salinity level in the water is apprehended to become 5 to 7 parts per thousand (ppt) by 2050, posing threats to food production. They said a 60-centimeter rise in the sea level is apprehended in Bangladesh coastal zone by the same year that will submerge 18 percent of the nation's landmass.

IWM Executive Director Emaduddin Ahmed said salinity will intrude more landward specially during dry season due to sea level rise. Against this backdrop, Ahmed said augmented flow of fresh water in the major rivers in Bangladesh, the world's largest delta country, is vital for preventing salinity level to shield the country's agro-farming sector against climate change shocks…

Kash flowers on the banks of the River Padma in Bangladesh, shot by Auyon, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License

Protecting Sumatra's peat lands vital for saving the environment

Jonathan Woodliff in the Jakarta Post: With only 19 days to go before the critical UN climate summit in Copenhagen, environmental activists are right to be highlighting Indonesia's unenviable position as one of the world's largest emitters of greenhouse gases. There is no doubt that long term abuse and mismanagement of the nation's forests is the main cause, which is why Greenpeace set up a "Climate Defenders Camp" on the Kampar Peninsula in Central Sumatra three weeks ago.

Burgeoning population pressures, rampant illegal logging and widespread forest fires release millions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which is significantly contributing to the global warming crisis.

When I first flew over the Kampar Peninsula in Riau province eight years ago, massive swathes of natural forest had clearly been destroyed. A complex network of canals had been chiseled out to provide access for illegal loggers. Most of the forest closest to the surrounding water had disappeared, and there was much evidence of devastating slash-and-burn farming. It looked like a free-for-all haven for encroachment, where anyone could take what they wanted, turning the area into a desolate and barren wasteland.

In addition to being home to endangered animal species such as the Sumatran tiger, the clouded leopard and Wallace's hawk eagle, as well as to many local communities who depend on the forest for their livelihoods, this peninsula is one of the largest remaining peat swamps on the planet.

Peat lands play a major role in regulating global climate, acting as "carbon sinks", storing more carbon dioxide per unit area than any other ecosystem. Their protection is absolutely vital if irreversible climate change is to be averted….

A 1556 map of Sumatra

Rising sea levels to impact the waste sector

Garth Lamb in Inside Waste Weekly: Sea level rise is one of the most frightening aspects of global climate change, and last week’s Federal Government report on the topic has highlighted there could potentially be a major impact on coastal waste facilities. Hundreds of low-lying landfills may need to be relocated to prepare for the effects of global warming, an exercise that could possibly cost many millions of dollars.

The Climate Change Risks to Australia’s Coast: A First Pass National Assessment report prepared by the Department of Climate Change modeled the impact of sea levels rising 900-1,100mm by 2100. It suggests “at least 41 waste disposal facilities are located within 200m of the coastline” and potentially at risk from the rising oceans. The director consultancy Mike Ritchie and Associates, which was acknowledged for its contribution to the report, points out this figure is only a subset of the 400-600 licensed, operational landfills in Australia.

The DCC report notes there are “possibly several thousand small tips” located in coastal areas. In a preliminary exercise looking at aerial photographs along the Queensland coast, Mike Ritchie identified as many as 200 possible waste sites.

“Many town dumps were located in places that were undesirable or not suitable for community needs, were cheap to procure or required filling,” notes the report. “As a result many old dumps are sited in or adjoining flood prone and low-lying lands. Areas abutting mangroves and salt marshes were, for decades, preferred places for the local tip.”

“Most state and local governments now prevent the construction of new landfills within 100m of a watercourse. However, there is a large legacy of many ‘tips’ and ‘dumps’ long closed, but located in areas vulnerable to the future impacts of climate change and sea-level rise.”…

A garbage dump on the Toronto waterfront, Toronto, Canada. Garbage was dumped between the wharves to extend the land into the harbour. Around 1922

Don't panic over sea risk to homes, says governmentt in Victoria

I wonder how reassuring this is. I wouldn't buy it. Brisbane Times (Australia): Victorians living on the coast should wait for detailed studies on rising sea levels, the state government says. Trying to avert panic over a recent Commonwealth report identifying areas under threat of inundation, Environment Minister Gavin Jennings said Victorian research would be more accurate.

The Climate Change Risks to Australia's Coasts report found up to 44,600 Victorian homes would be at risk from rising sea levels by the turn of the century. The findings are based on a sea level rise of up to 1.1 metres by 2100, and more extreme weather events. "We think that's a very broad brush approach, it's taking a 100 year horizon and it's actually taking a one in 100 year worst case scenario," Mr Jennings told reporters on Monday.

He said the state commissioned studies, set to be completed next year, would provide a more accurate picture of the impact of climate change on the Victorian coastline. "Our work, which is a very detailed, very thorough analysis, has a finer grain detail than what we've seen coming through the Commonwealth's research," Mr Jennings said.

"We need to have a close eye for what these impacts may be but let's not jump to the worst case scenario. Let's actually work through in a time sequence, in a detailed way ... if they're (Victorians) better informed then in fact they're more likely to account for this in a calm and rational and considered fashion." Mr Jennings said the Victorian studies involved aerial mapping at one metre intervals, whereas the Commonwealth research was every 20 metres….

A view across 5 Mile Beach in the northern part of Wilson's Prom. The photo is taken from near the top of the hill between the 5 Mile Beach camp and Johnny Souey Cove. Shot by Kauos, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License